


Across the Stars

by Wafflesrock



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: AU, F/M, Ficlets, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 03:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29868147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wafflesrock/pseuds/Wafflesrock
Summary: A collection of shakarian AU ficlets and OC ficlets. Originally posted on Tumblr.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Comments: 14
Kudos: 14





	1. Life/Death AU

_“Life and death have been in love for longer than we have words to describe. Life sends countless gifts to Death...and Death keeps them forever.” --Anonymous_

Most saw death as an end to be feared, black and cold and cruel. Death didn’t like to think of herself that way. She wasn’t cold--or at least she didn’t think so. She cherished all the souls she shepherded into the afterlife. And while she did undeniably like the color black, she also enjoyed the color red. And blue. Blue was her favorite 

Death was a name bestowed upon her, but not one she’d have chosen for herself. She preferred to be called ‘Shepard.’ At least by friends. Not that she had many, but there were a few and they tended to choose their own monikers as well. 

Ocean, for example, for reasons nobody could understand, liked to be called ‘Jack.’ Shepard supposed the name was fitting for the ocean’s tempestuous, unpredictable nature. Why Moon wanted to be called ‘Miranda’ was another mystery. 

Miranda and Jack enjoyed a loving, if not complex relationship. It ebbed and flowed, pushed and pulled yet remained an unbreakable force. 

“Perhaps the only relationship more complicated than Jack and mine is yours and Life,” Miranda had stated in a crisp, erudite tone. 

Shepard glanced down at the marble of blue and green that hung below them in the infinite cosmos. Swirling clouds coruscated across the surface in an unending dance. The world looked like a joyous, happy place. Shepard frowned.

“Life-- _Garrus_ \--can be so cruel.” She sighed. “Sometimes I swear he creates life for no reason other than to watch its light flicker and fade. Then _I’m_ called heartless. I’m the one who ends the suffering.”

Miranda hummed, ethereal light reflecting off her ebony hair and making it glow a radiant silver. “We all have duties. Not all of them are pleasant.” She turned her pale face to Shepard, settling her hands on her lap. Her starlight gown pooled beneath her like a silk river. “You ought to talk to him. He misses you.”

“I know.” Shepard lowered her head, crimson hair creating a curtain across her face. “He still sends me gifts,” she murmured. “The most beautiful souls from his most treasured creations. But,” she lifted her face to look Miranda in the eye. “I don’t want his gifts. I want…” she trailed off, unsure how to explain. 

Miranda rose from the silver crescent of her throne and beamed down at Shepard. “I know,” she whispered softly as a night breeze. “Tell him.”

Shepard stepped out under the orange melon glow of sunset. Soon, the sky would erupt in color; reds and golds, pinks and orange. Everything--even the atmosphere seemed to resist fading away. That wasn’t what sunset was about, of course. It, like so many other phenomenons the creatures of the world admired for their beauty, had been created by Garrus specifically for Shepard. 

She watched the light show blossom over the green valleys and meadows with eyes the same verdant hue as summer grass. Eyes she’d selected because Garrus liked the color. 

“Shepard!”

She turned toward the burning white light of Life. It pulsed and diminished until Garrus stood, framed by eternal sunshine like colossal wings, blue eyes aflame. His form was different to that chosen by herself, Jack, and Miranda. There were others who preferred the tall, armored and plated appearance. He had talons and fangs, mandibles and a crest of horns. He looked at once radiant and dangerous. Which was an apt personification for life, if Shepard considered it. 

“Shepard, I…I’ve missed you.” Garrus stopped in front of her. Close enough for her to reach out and caress his scared mandible. For Life wasn’t flawless, but rather a rugged thing, whose beauty shone all the brighter for the imperfections. 

“I know. I just…” Shepard sighed, before squaring her shoulders and looking her love in the eyes. “I needed some time. After the war…there were so many, Garrus. Some were so young. I know you don’t control the famine, plague, pestilence and war. But it was a lot.”

Garrus nodded, the dying rays of sunlight reflecting off his silver plates and throwing the cobalt cloak he wore into stark relief. “I know. I didn’t want-- _never_ want, my creations to meet violent ends. It’s a comfort to know they’re going with you, at least.” He dared to take a step forward, then another. Slowly, giving her the chance to pull away if she wanted, he reached out to her. 

Shepard squeezed his hands. So much larger and rougher than her own. Different, but familiar. The hands that held her, that threaded through her hair, that drew sighs and hushed pleas as they worked-- _calibrated,_ to use his words--her corporal body into a writhing mess. 

“Shepard.” He purred the word, using both sets of vocals. It gave his voice a smokey quality that Shepard loved. “I’m sorry if my gifts have caused you pain. I want you to be happy. I can’t control what my creations do with the life I give them.”

She moved, taking the final step to press into his warm, glowing embrace. “I know,” she sighed against his tunic. Her long, flowing shawl of midnight fluttered in the evening breeze.

Twilight was the time they’d carved out for themselves. On the cusp of light and dark, Life and Death would join together, confirming their devotion. 

Shepard lifted onto her toes as Garrus bent his head. He tasted of mint and holly, fresh spring water and brilliant dawn. Her hands wrapped around his neck and he pulled her closer. Stars burst overhead in a glorious cacophony of diamond and glittering nebula spun away as Life and Death reaffirmed their vows. 

“You still want to be a one deity kind of woman?” Garrus breathed against her parted lips. 

“I love you, Life. Garrus Vakarian. Until the end of all things.”

She felt more than heard his rumbling reply, pitched in octaves lower than the sounds of seeds coming to life within their bed of soil and clouds forming in the heavens. “I love you too, Death. My Shepard. Always.”

Far away, Time, or Mordin as he preferred to be called, hummed an old song he’d heard somewhere, reciting fractions and events over in his infinite mind in a rapid-fire succession no mortal could ever keep pace with. He glanced down upon Life and Death in intimate embrace. 

_As it should be,_ he mused upon the pair. _There is no Life without Death. No Shepard without Vakarian._


	2. The Bard of Shanxi

Inspired by [Orville Peck’s “Kids”   
](https://href.li/?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seX-7-0PVeY)

Time had no meaning in this place. Dingy, concrete walls cast the same, gloomy shadows no matter the hour as the soft buzz of florescent lights chorused overhead. 

Bright, steel bars mocked the otherwise moldering, atrophied interior of the building where the turian POWs were kept. The humans had once used this place as a prison for their own kind. It had survived the aerial bombardment and in a sardonic case of irony, now housed those that would have been conquerors. 

Flavian limply jangled a shackled wrist for no reason other than to hear the metallic clink the movement caused. He was the only prisoner in this spirits-forsaken cell. No one else in his unit had survived the aquatic ambush. The humans had risen from the reeds and tepid marsh water at sunset, slick with russet colored mud and stinking of decay. How long had they waited in that festering, putrid swamp? They’d been underwater, breathing through hollow reeds for hours, Flavian had later learned. 

His patrol had been taken completely off-guard. The human’s primitive, lead fueled guns could survive the submersion and had worked to deadly effect. _Just goes to show a weapon doesn’t have to be advanced to kill_ , Flavian thought bitterly. 

Was it a mercy or a curse that he’d been in the thick brush relieving himself when they attacked? Either way, he’d turned to come face to face with nine guns pointed at his head. And now, he was here. Nothing more to be said of his inglorious capture.

At some point in the day, a human–-a tired looking male with brilliant blue eyes-–would appear from around the corner of his cell and push a tube of dextro-paste over. Flavian had considered refusing to eat, but death by self-inflicted starvation was hardly worthy martyrdom. He was nobody, anyway; just a solider. A farmer-boy from Taetrus. No prestigious title or family name. A commoner tossed into this political and military shit-show without concern. 

A new, sudden sound caught his attention. It sounded like the thrumming of chords that reverberated in the hollowness of the prison. There was a distinct melody to the sound and Flavian realized with surprise that the tired guard must be playing some type of human instrument. He listened with rapt intrigue, the shackles on his wrists forgotten as the steel bars and cracked concrete walls faded away. 

A deep, smooth voice began to sing. He couldn’t understand the words; translation of the human language wasn’t perfect. Yet. But somehow, the tone filled him with a sense of ineffable sadness. Something was lost, somewhere. On an alien world with an alien sun. He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but as the guard’s voice seeped into the still air, he was filled with a deep-rooted longing. 

He missed his younger brother and the simpler times of childhood. Dust caked bare feet and blunted talons running through tilled fields. Bird calls in the dusky twilight and the smell of fresh cut _cevern_ grass. Knowing his mother had cooked _xemna_ steak for dinner and the jubilant, enthusiastic race to the table. 

The guards voice hit a crescendo. _He has a voice like warm whiskey,_ Flavian thought absently. He’d never heard a human sing. It was comparable to an asari in intonation, but closer to a batarian with the deeper ululation that accompanied some verses. _A pleasant voice,_ he decided. 

The song drifted to a stop, the guard’s voice an echo clinging to the bars as the chords died away into nothingness. 

“Can you sing another one?” Flavian asked into the renewed silence. His voice croaked like a dehydrated amphibian from disuse. 

_Stupid,_ he chastised himself when there was no response. _He can’t understand you anyway, and you’re a prisoner, not a concert attendee–_

The instrument sprang to life in a triumphant strumming of notes that seemed…happy? Optimistic, at least. The guard sang song after song in that melodious, alien voice. Some were solemn, others crisp with excitement and promise. They took Flavian far away from the grey infused prison on a hostile world. Back to home and family and loved ones. 

When at last the music stopped for good, the guard peeked around the corner at him. Flavian wasn’t an expert on expressions-–let alone human expressions–-but the small smile on the guard’s face seemed friendly. Friendlier than anything else he’d experienced here. 

Unable to applaud, he rumbled in thanks and bowed his head. When he looked up, the guard had vanished. 

He never heard the guard sing again. The next day, a different group of humans, accompanied by three asari in commando leathers released him from his cell and he was accompanied to an asari ship where other freed turian POWs were being treated by a doctor. 

The Relay 314 incident was over. Yet, on still nights, back home on Taetrus, Flavian drifted back to Shanxi. Harmony hugging the prison air in a show of compassion he wasn’t sure he’d deserved. 

_I bet that guard is a famous singer,_ Flavian thought as the fuzzy film of sleep crept over him. _I’d pay to hear him sing. In a happier setting. Maybe one day…_


	3. Western AU

The town of Omega was situated in the shadow of the looming Omega-4 Mountain. It was the largest in a relay of shale and sandstone mountains that raced along the dust caked, parched land, sheltering bandits, outlaws, thugs, moonshiners–-and the regular hardworking people just trying to eke a living from the barren terrain. 

Omega was hundreds of miles from the next settlement. Its isolation bred cruelty and lawlessness. There was no sheriff in Omega, no gunslinger on the side of justice. Or at least, there hadn’t been. 

Deputy Shepard squinted at the ramshackle brown mass of buildings that wavered in the heat haze like a mirage. Omega-4’s shadow, like a malicious sundial, shaded the sagebrush and cactuses on the uninhabited side of town at this hour. This left Omega and its denizens to swelter under the unrelenting desert sun. 

Normandy pawed the dry riverbed where they stood with his hoof. A cloud of dust rose and quickly settled in the heavy air. _This entire place is a crypt,_ Shepard thought to herself. 

A shunras bird circled overhead. The hanar brought the oceanic birds with them wherever they went preaching about the enkidlers. Shunras were a good omen of plentiful tides and calm waters. And misplaced as all hell in this scorched wasteland. 

Clicking her tongue to Normandy, Shepard headed for Omega. She was tired, dirty, but above all, on a mission. Sheriff Anderson had personally given her the warrant to execute. 

_Archangel._

Some people said Archangel was a solitary hunter. A sharpshooter picking off his prey. Others said it was a gang composed of members from all the different species which swarmed Omega’s alleyways like lice. Everyone had to suck a living from somewhere, and Archangel–-whether a gang or lone gunner–-earned their living by killing Omega’s worst scum. 

Normandy’s ears pressed flat against his head, nostrils flaring at the sour, acrid scent of the town. Omega was founded on mining and the smell of the different elixirs and chemical compounds used to melt through the rock burned the eyes, nose, and every other orifice. 

Shepard pulled her red bandanna up over the lower portion of her face. It didn’t do much to dilute the smell but was better than nothing. 

She headed for the largest and loudest building on the main street. Afterlife was a saloon, brothel, inn, and depending on the time of day and clientele, a morgue. Perfect place to get a stiff drink and with any luck, information on her quarry. 

Shepard stepped through the low swinging doors into a dim, smokey world filled with bawdy laughter and the clink of glasses. A grey-skinned salarian was set up at piano in the corner, but his fingers were gripping the thigh and rear of a scantily clad asari dancer who sat perched on his lap, clutching a half empty bottle of horisk and cackling like a witch. 

A few glances fell on Shepard as she made for the crowded bar, but no one paid her much heed. Her clothes and boots were perhaps nicer than most, but they were layered in dirt and sweat and her hair frizzed under her hat and clung to her neck in an unkempt red tangle. _I fit right in,_ she mused, unsure how she felt about that. For her current purposes that was good, but Shepard was a Citadel Deputy, charged by the Council to maintain order and justice in all the surrounding towns and cities. Omega flew in the face of everything her badge–-concealed beneath a long leather jacket-–stood for. She personally thought Archangel was doing everyone a favor by ridding this sin-trap of its worst villainy. But the Council wanted to talk to them. In person. And gods only knew Archangel had done enough to ensure a warrant for their extraction was easily obtained. Finding a deputy skilled and crazy enough to fulfill this warrant? That had been more difficult. According to Sheriff Anderson, Shepard was the Council’s surest bet of getting Archangel. 

_Now I just have to find him. Or them._ Shepard ordered a whiskey from the cantankerous batarian bartender. She wondered who’d spit in his gruel when he sneered and roughly tossed the glass at her.

She pulled down her bandana, but before she had the rim of the glass to her lips a large, three-fingered hand slapped it away.

There was a crash as the glass shattered on the bar top, spilling whiskey onto Shepard’s lap. 

“Hey!”

“I wouldn’t drink that if I were you,” a black velvet, dual toned voice said. 

Shepard glared up at the turian whose piercing blue eyes looked like glacial run-off. He wore a cobalt blue bandana over his mouth, though she could see the material rise and fall with the movements of his mandibles. He had a short leather jacket and an impressive ammo belt around his narrow waist.

“The batarian bartender here hates humans,” the turian said with a nod to the back of the bartender in question. “He poisons them.”

Shepard scowled at the brown liquid coating the bar top. “Does he now,” she muttered. 

“What the fuck!” the bartender yelled, having turned and noticed the mess. He swung at Shepard but the turian was faster. 

The turian struck like a bullwhip, seizing the batarian by the throat in an iron grip. He made a tisking sound as he squeezed the batarian’s neck until all four eyes bulged. “It’s not nice to poison the patrons,” he said in a condescending tone. “What would Madame T’Loak think if she knew, hmm?” 

The batarian gargled out what might have been _‘please’_ hands scrabbling to pull the turian’s hand off. 

“Let him go!” Shepard commanded. 

The turian gave her a sideways glance. “As the lady requests,” he said, releasing the batarian to wheeze atop the bar. The turian lowered his head, giving Shepard a glimpse of blue colony markings along his cheek. “Leave,” the turian said to the bartender. “Now.”

Stumbling backward, the batarian fled around the bar, ignored by the drunks and gamblers as he pushed through the saloon doors. He ran down the street and Shepard heard an unmistakable pistol shot resound. Nobody so much as flinched. 

Whipping her head around, Shepard saw the turian fading into the crowd and chased after him. “Hey, we’re not done here!” She grabbed him by the wrist. 

The turian froze in his tracks, slowly moving to look at her. “I saved your life. You’re not from here. Omega tends to be a bit… _messy_ by Council Deputy standards.”

“How did you–”

“Look, let’s cut to the chase. I know who you are and who you’re looking for. Archangel isn’t going to just go with you to Citadel. Not without some heavy incentive at least.” He shook off her grip. 

“And just how would you know that?” Shepard crossed her arms and cocked her hip, allowing her jacket to fall open and reveal her holstered six-shooter. 

The turian pulled down his bandana and flared a mandible. “I hear things,” he said, an amused lilt to his subvocals. “If you’re serious about recruiting Archangel for your Council’s mission, I might be able to help you.” He nodded toward the door and hesitantly, Shepard followed him outside. 

“Who are you?” she asked as they walked to the hitching post where a massive black and yellow lacerta stood tethered next to Normandy. 

“Call me Blue,” the turian replied, patting the muscled neck of his mount. “And you are?”

Shepard snorted. Two could play this game. “Red,” she returned. 

He glanced up at her, mandibles fluttering in a turian smirk. “Okay, _Red_. Here’s the thing. You want Archangel? You gotta take down the Blue Suns first. And the Blood Pack. And Eclipse.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Blue pulled himself up into his saddle, digi-grade boots resting on either side of his lacerta’s flanks. He cut an impressive figure, Shepard noted. Tall and lean, long fringe and a confident swagger that almost reminded her a bit of herself.

“I wouldn’t dare joke with a Citadel Deputy,” Blue said. “If you want more answers, follow me.”

He rumbled to the lacerta who turned and lumbered down the wide street with a swinging gate. Shepard sighed. _I never did get a stiff drink,_ she thought wistfully before climbing astride Normandy once more and following after Blue. 

This warrant just became a helluva lot more interesting.

**Author's Note:**

> What can I say, I'm a sucker for shakarian AUs.


End file.
